my current obsession:

…this afghan in progress.

I have a huge collection of superwash wools and wool blends in my stash, mostly single skeins and partial skeins leftover from baby projects and Christmas stockings. Since the way I am able to justify my “huge” (in Ryan’s opinion) yarn collection is by saying that all that yarn could one day be used for something, I have decided that now is the time to use that yarn. I am buying two skeins of yellow and one of purple (knitpicks’ swish worsted, my favorite), just to balance things out. Apparently, I don’t ever knit with yellow and purple.
I decided that the most my distracted brain could handle right would be a huuuuge granny square. We’ll see how it works out, I guess.

I feel like I should mention that I took this photo on Friday of last week. The afghan is now roughly twice this size. I have had two sick babies and a sick husband this week so the amount of time between taking photo and posting blog has been a bit stretched out. I neatly cropped out the pile of Edda’s snotty tissues and the bottle of hand sanitizer that were also on the table…

Heaven in a loaf pan.

There are few things more delicious than freshly-baked bread.

The recipe is, once again, from my new favorite book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Brioche. It’s not a recipe for the dieting, but it is oh so delicious. Especially with a little smear of strawberry jam… mmmmmmm.

Mom’s Christmas Scarf

I finished this scarf before Christmas… you know, because it was a Christmas gift for my mom. I think she really liked it! The pattern was really easy to memorize, even for a novice crocheter like me. (I’ve been crocheting for almost 17 years and just now learned to read patterns about a year ago.) The yarn was so neat; Araucania Ranco Solid. It didn’t pool at all, it just subtly changed colors a little here and there. Perfect.

The pattern is “Isar Scarf” by Julia Vaconsin. (It’s a free ravelry download.) I left off the fringe called for because my mom is not really into fringe. The look of the scarf really changes a lot after blocking, as is usually the case with openwork-type things. Also, I would recommend using a larger hook than you might think you should, because when it’s worked tightly the scarf does not look lacy and nice at all. It just looks stiff and odd.

I, of course, wanted to keep it for myself, but I gave it to my mom like a good daughter. Now she’d better wear it… haha.

A cup of chai.

I made some yummy chai tea seasoning. You basically just mix a bunch of spices with a can of sweetened condensed milk and put in a jar in the fridge for a day. Then whenever you want a cup of chai tea, you just have to brew some strong black tea (assam, for instance, is good) and add a few generous spoonfuls of gooey chai stuff from the jar. Delicious. Here is a link to the recipe.